and number of layers of calcareous matter composing an extinct oyster-shell.  In some ancient formations, stratum above stratum of extinguished oysters may be seen, each bed consisting of full-grown and aged individuals.  Happy broods these pre-Adamite congregations must have been, born in an epoch when epicures were as yet unthought of, when neither Sweeting nor Lynn had come into existence, and when there were no workers in iron to fabricate oyster-knives!  Geology, and all its wonders, makes known to us scarcely one more mysterious or inexplicable than the creation of oysters long before oyster-eaters and the formation of oyster-banks—­ages before dredgers!  What a lamentable heap of good nourishment must have been wasted during the primeval epochs!  When we meditate upon this awful fact, can we be surprised that bishops will not believe in it, and, rather than assent to the possibility of so much good living having been created to no purpose, hold faith with Mattioli and Fallopio, who maintained fossils to be the fermentations of a materia pinguis; or Mercati, who saw in them stones bewitched by stars; or Olivi, who described them as the ‘sports of nature;’ or Dr Plot, who derived them from a latent plastic virtue?—­Westminster Review, Jan. 1852.

THE OASES OF LIBYA.

    Nought wholly waste or wretched will appear
      Through all the world of Nature or of mind;
    Hope’s tender beamings soften Sorrow’s tear,
      The homeless outcast happy hours will find: 
    To polar snows the Aurora-fires are given,
      The voice of friendship cheers the groping blind;
    The dreary night hath stars to deck the heaven;
      One law prevails beneficently kind: 
    E’en not all darkness is the silent tomb,
    Faith points to bowers of bliss beyond the gloom.

    So, Libya, in thy wide and fiery waste,
      Gladdening the traveller, plots of verdure lie,
    As if, when demons thence all life had chased,
      They dropped in beauty from the pitying sky. 
    How weary pilgrims, dragging o’er the plain,
      When first green Siwah’s valleys they espy,[1]
    Cast off their faintness! swiftly on they strain,
      Drinking sweet odours, as the breeze floats by: 
    They see the greenery of the swelling hills,
    They hear, they hear the gush of bubbling rills!

    Oh! beautiful that soul-enchanting scene! 
      The fresh leaves twinkling, and the wild-birds singing;
    The rocks so mossy, and the grass so green,
      From tree to tree the vine’s young tendrils swinging: 
    Fruits of all hue—­pomegranate, plum, and peach,
      Tempting the eye, and thoughts luxurious bringing;
    Flowers of all breath that each stray hand may reach,
      The glittering bee among them blithely winging: 
    While skies more clear, more bluely seem to glow,
    To match the bright and fairy scene below.